HAWKWOOD, Sir JOHN de (d. 1394), general, second son of Gilbert de Hawkwood of Hedingham Sibil, Hinckford, Essex, a tanner, was born in that place early in the fourteenth century. Gilbert de Hawkwood was a man of substance and gentle blood, the family having held land at Hedingham Sibil since the reign of John. The tradition that Hawkwood began life as a tailor in London probably originated in Italy, and from a corruption of his name, which Matteo Villani spells Gianni della Guglia (John of the Needle). He is also said to have been impressed for the French wars, and to have served as an archer in the army of Edward III.
In 1359 Hawkwood was in Gascony in command of a troop of free-lances, who maintained themselves by pillage, and in the summer of that year took Pau by storm, robbing the clergy, and letting the laity alone. From Pau Hawkwood led his men towards Italy, hoping to escape the plague which was then desolating France, and in the autumn of 1360 joined his forces to those of another company of freebooters, which, under Bernard de la Salle, was advancing from the north with the same object. On 28 Dec. they took Pont l'Esprit, thirty miles north of Avignon, then the seat of the papacy, and after levying a substantial contribution from Pope Innocent VI (reckoned by Froissart at sixty thousand francs, of which Hawkwood received a sixth; and by Matteo Villani at one hundred thousand florins of gold), proceeded on their way to Italy, and entered the service of John Paleologus, marquis of Monferrato. Hawkwood tarried for a little in order to take part in the battle of Brignais, where the English defeated the French under Jacques de Bourbon on 6 April 1362, and then followed his comrades into Italy. The Marquis of Monferrato was at war with the Visconti of Milan, and employed his new auxiliaries, who numbered between five and six thousand, in ravaging Lombardy. They went by the name of the White Company, probably by reason of the splendour of their equipment.
The White Company soon numbered a thousand lances—they introduced into Italy the practice of counting cavalry by lances—and two thousand infantry. Each lance consisted of knight, squire, and page, the last mounted on a palfrey. Knight and squire rode powerful chargers, the one sheathed in iron and steel from head to foot, the other less heavily armed. Their principal weapon was a long and heavy lance, requiring two men to wield, but they also carried heavy swords and daggers, and bows slung across their backs. They fought both on horseback and on foot, but used their lances only on foot, waiting in square or circular formation to receive the enemy upon the points of their lances, or advancing slowly and with fierce shouts against them. The infantry were armed with the long bow of yew, one end of which they stuck into the ground before drawing it. They also carried swords, daggers, and small and light ladders, by superposing which one upon another they were able to scale the highest towers in the country. Horse and foot alike were in the prime of life, inured to every kind of hardship in the French wars, and admirably disciplined. Five lances composed a company, five companies a troop, and every ten lances had usually a separate officer. For their raiding expeditions the White Company usually chose the night, when they would burst like a deluge upon a town, massacre the men, violate the women, carry off whatever was valuable and portable, and set fire to what they left behind. At other times they would content themselves with levying contributions.
Before advancing into the Milanese they made a raid into Piedmont, where they took seven castles, surprised the Count of Savoy and his principal barons, and held them to ransom for 180,000 florins. They then passed into Lombardy, and carried havoc on both sides of the Po, from Novara to Pavia and Tortona. On 22 April 1363 they signally defeated near Romagnano a company of Hungarians led by Count Conrad Landau of Suabia, on whom the Visconti mainly relied for the defence of their dominions. Landau died of his wounds, and the Visconti made peace ({{sc|Higden}, Rolls Ser., viii. 371; Gent. Mag. 1788, pt. ii. p. 1061; Matteo Villani, lib. ix. chap. xxxvii. lib. x. chaps. xxvii–xciv.; Froissart, Suite du Livre Premier, chaps. mlxv. mlxvi. livre second, chap. li.) In July the company passed into the service of the republic of Pisa, then at war with Florence, their pay being fixed at ten thousand florins of gold per month.
